d would reconvince his child,
impelled Raeburn to break his resolution.

"I could sooner doubt that you are standing here, father, with your arm
round me," said Erica, "than I could doubt the presence of your Father
and mine the All-Father."

"Even though his followers are such lying scoundrels as that Pogson?
What do you make of that? What do you think of that?"

"I think," she replied quietly, "that my father is too just a man to
judge Christianity by the very worst specimen of a Christian to be
met with. Any one who does not judge secularism by its very best
representatives, dead or living, is unfair and what is unfair in one
case is unfair in another."

"Well, if I judged it by you, perhaps I might take a different view
of it," said Raeburn. "But then you had the advantage of some years of
secularism."

"Not by me!" cried Erica. "How can it seem anything but very faulty when
you judge it only by faulty people? Why not judge it by the life and
character of Christ?"

Raeburn turned away with a gesture of impatience.

"A myth! A poetic creation long ago distorted out of its true
proportions! There, child, I see we must stop. I only pain you and
torture myself by arguing the question."

"One more thing," said Erica, "before we go back to the old silence.
Father, if you would only write a life of Christ I mean, a really
complete life; the one you wrote years ago was scarcely more than a
pamphlet."

He smiled, knowing that she thought the deep study necessary for such an
undertaking would lead to a change in his views.

"My dear," he said, "perhaps I would; but just see how I am overdone. I
couldn't write an elaborate thing now. Besides, there is the book on the
Pentateuch not half finished though it was promised months ago. Perhaps
a year or two hence when Pogson gives me time to draw a long breath,
I'll attempt it; but I have an idea that one or other of us will have
to be 'kilt intirely' before that happy time arrives. Perhaps we shall
mutually do for each other, and reenact the historical song." And, with
laughter in his eyes, he repeated:

"There once were two cats of Kilkenny, Each thought there was one cat
too many, So they quarreled and spit, and they scratched and they bit,
Till, excepting their nails and the tips of their tails, Instead of two
cats, there weren't any."

Erica smiled faintly, but sighed the next minute.

"Well, there! It's too grave a matter to jest about," said Raeburn. "Oh,
ba